Eur. Phys. J. A (2006) 28: 375-377
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2006-10068-x

Nuclear Astrophysics

Change of the ⁷Be electron capture half-life in metallic environments

¹ China Institute of Atomic Energy, Beijing, PRC
² Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientale, Seconda Università di Napoli, Caserta, Italy
³ INFN, Napoli, Italy
⁴ Experimentalphysik III, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany
⁵ School of Physics, University of Edinburgh, UK
⁶ Dynamitron-Tandem-Laboratorium, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany
⁷ Centro de Fısica Nuclear, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
⁸ Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita, Seconda Università di Napoli, Caserta, Italy
⁹ Atomki, Debrecen, Hungary
¹⁰ Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Università Federico II, Napoli, Italy

^* e-mail: rolfs@ep3.rub.de

Received: 3 May 2006
Accepted: 8 July 2006
Published online: 14 July 2006

Abstract

For the electron capture of ⁷Be in the metallic environments Pd and In the ⁷Be half-life was observed to increase by 0.9±0.2 and 0.7±0.2%, respectively, while in the insulator Li₂O it was unchanged within experimental error (all samples cooled to T = 12K). The observations are consistent with the predictions of the Debye plasma model applied to the quasi-free electrons in the metals.